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"Now," Liam said. "While they're blinded."

The two warriors zigzagged through the battlefield in tandem. When a frost mage appeared, Liam hurled a fire-charged bolt that cracked the ice shield, and Tony followed up with a concussive blast that shattered the mage's armor entirely.

One of the elite warriors lunged at Tony from above, greatsword raised. Liam raised his staff—and vines grew out of the earth to hold him. The man was slow just enough for Tony to adjust. He twisted midair, turned his gauntlet backward, and fired directly into the warrior's face. The helmet exploded in shards of ice and bone.

More enemies swarmed in. Two Wild Hunt warriors attempted to flank them.

"Now!" Liam shouted.

Tony lifted his wrist, and Liam tapped it with his staff. A glowing arcane rune transferred between them—and Tony's gauntlet gleamed with raw, magical charge.

Tony turned and pointed both arms forward.

"Fire in the hole!"

He fired twin energy lances laced with Liam's magic. The two bolts corkscrewed around each other in a spiral and hit the enemies at once—detonating in a massive nova that vaporized the attackers and melted a ten-foot radius of frost.

Above them, Caranthir floated now. He cast a hand outward—and space rippled. The dome around Liam cracked. The very gravity of the courtyard twisted.

"We need to take him off that throne of ice," Liam said through gritted teeth, barely holding the magical shield up.

"I'll bait him. You prep a spell." Liam nodded and began to chant under his breath, in Quenya. Caranthir had been following Liam all this time and seeing the young man chanting Quenya made him more determined to take this human away. 

Tony surged up at full speed. Caranthir watched with disdain and lazily flung a shard of condensed rift energy. It struck Tony mid-chest and sent him careening into a wall, the Vibranium armor barely holding.

"Ow," Tony groaned. "Definitely a boss fight."

Caranthir turned his attention to Liam, descending like a god of winter wrath. Just as he raised his staff to cast—Tony roared back, having recovered faster than Caranthir anticipated.

Tony shot past him, dragging behind him a cord of Vibranium wire that was shimmering with the magic of arcanist.

He circled Caranthir like a lasso, tightening the loop—and as it snapped around the elven mage, Liam shouted the final words of his incantation.

The spell activated.

The wire pulsed with blinding light. Caranthir's movements faltered. For a brief second, his ability to shift through rifts was gone. His magic, disrupted.

"NOW!" Liam shouted.

He raised his staff high and brought it down. A column of golden-white fire erupted from the sky, striking Caranthir square in the chest. The impact hurled the elven commander downward, smashing him into the ground with a boom that cracked the stone courtyard.

The Wild Hunt faltered, confused. But the spell didn't kill him.

Caranthir rose slowly, his armor smoking, and blood could be seen in some patches of the armor. 

"You will regret that," he hissed.

He slammed his staff into the ground—and opened three rifts at once. From them came more hounds and two more elite knights, all roaring with frenzy.

But the defenders of Kaer Morhen weren't out of tricks either.

Steve sprinted forward, shield ready, and met the first knight head-on, trading blow for blow as Vesemir flanked him with quick, lethal strikes. Keira and Triss had formed a barrier across the courtyard's entrance, firing beams and hexes in rhythm.

Natasha darted through the chaos, planting bombs on the incoming hounds. As one lunged for Yennefer, Natasha jumped from a ledge and drove a dagger into its skull midair.

Caranthir, furious now, formed a new spell—icy meteors began swirling overhead.

"Liam—" Yennefer called, "Do it again!"

Liam didn't answer. His body lit with blue and golden light, tattoos flaring across his arms. He gripped his staff with both hands and leapt forward, straight toward Caranthir.

"Tony!" he called.

Tony took off again, joining him midair. This time, Liam gripped Tony's shoulder as they ascended together.

They dove together.

Caranthir turned—too late.

The lance struck his side, engulfed in Liam's fire and Tony's energy. The explosion tore across the battlefield, sending Caranthir crashing again, this time through one of his own rifts. The rift collapsed after him with a sucking implosion.

Silence fell.

The remaining Wild Hunt forces, without their commander, hesitated.

Geralt raised his sword and charged.

"Now!" 

Everyone surged forward, driving back the stunned invaders. Within moments, the courtyard was clear again. Dozens of bodies—Wild Hunt and hounds—littered the ground.

Tony landed next to Liam, both panting heavily.

"That's one round down," Tony said.

"Eredin hasn't showed up yet. And nor did Imlerith." Liam said. 

"And this is after Eredin didn't inform the empire of their ambitions? I can't even imagine when the empire comes after us." Tony lamented. 

"We can't dwell on that, at the moment." Vesemir said. No rifts opened for the time being, which gave everyone some buffer time to rectify their fortress. And that's what everyone did. Liam and other sorcerers sat down and recharged themselves, while he specifically was trying to remember what exactly happened during the battle in Kaer Morhen. 

One thing he was sure that the Wild Hunt, didn't give Kaer Morhen a buffer time but seeing that the rifts had stopped meant that Eredin was approaching it from a different angle and this scared him a bit. 

Now it was unchartered territory that he had stepped in. And the silence didn't last long. 

The winds howled again.

Not like before. This wasn't the hiss of a rift opening, nor the warcry of wraith hounds. This was deeper—an echo that scraped against the soul. 

Liam felt it first. Sitting cross-legged near the edge of the courtyard, his staff laid across his knees, he opened his eyes slowly.

"They're coming again," he said.

The others stopped what they were doing. Triss, mid-heal on one of the wounded witchers. Geralt, sharpening his blade. Tony, running diagnostics. Everyone felt it now. The world had tilted. Even the ones who were not attuned to magic. 

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